This invention relates to automatic organization of data and more particularly to automatic organization of personal information data in an electronic organizer. An organize application program in the electronic organizer automatically classifies and stores a set of input information into one or more appropriate databases.
With an avalanche of information in the modern and busy world, electronic organizers such as personal digital assistants (PDA""s) and handheld personal computers (PC) have replaced pen-and-ink diaries for the recording of personal management information. Examples of personal management information are information of business contacts and appointments. In the pen-and-ink diaries, separate sections are available for recording the different types of information. An address and telephone directory section is usually provided for recording information such as name, address, telephone number and other information of business contacts and friends. A separate section is also devoted to the recording of appointments where pages representing each calendar day of the year in which appointments can be recorded are provided. Sometimes, a separate task section is devoted to the maintenance of a to-do list.
There are two aspects in the usage of an organizer: the entry and the retrieval of information. A typical user follows one of two methods to enter information into the pen-and-ink diary. The user can either quickly jot down the information in free form manner on a rough piece of paper and organize them into the appropriate sections of the diary later. Or alternatively, the user can interrupt the meeting so as to allow the user to record the information in the diary. Though this pen-and-ink diary serves its purpose, it suffers from disadvantages. As an example, consider the following scenario. A user of a diary is in the middle of a business meeting, and is required to record the following chunk of information given which the user is expected to hurriedly record without impeding the progress of the meeting:
The next status meeting is scheduled for 9 August, at 9-11 a.m., in the Einstein Room. But before the next meeting, the user has to submit a status report to the Operations Manager two days before the meeting, that is, by 7 August. And for input to the report, the user needs to contact Mr. John Smith of the Sales and Marketing Department to get the sales forecast for the next quarter. John""s phone number is 538-7666, and his email address is john-smith@singnet.com.sg.
To use the diary effectively to record the information on the fly, a user has to quickly assimilate the information to decide what information goes into which sections of the diary. Using the same example as above, a user would first need to break the chunk of information into logical pieces according to the applications which are used to store them. The information when broken down according to the respective applications is as follows:
1. Status Meeting to be held on 9 August, at 9-11 a.m., in the Einstein Room (to be entered into the Calendar application).
2. Submit Status Report to the Operations Manager by 7 August. Contact John Smith of Sales and Marketing Department for sales forecast for the next quarter (to be entered into the Task application).
3. John""s phone number is 538-7666, and his email address is john-smith@singnet.com.sg (to be entered into the Contact application).
It is obvious that this separation of information is not intuitive to a user who has to quickly record the information. The user would usually prefer to simply capture the information first and organize them later. This capture-first-organize-later approach comes across as more intuitive to the user. In the real world, information is usually received from unscheduled and spontaneous sources, requiring the user to adopt this capture-first-organize-later approach to record the information. Sources of such information include information received from conversations with people or from the mass media. The conversations may be carried out over the phone, in person, through electronic mails or by other means. Mass media information includes information disseminated through television and radio broadcasting, newspapers, magazines etc. When receiving information in such situations, the user has to quickly capture the information so as not to miss any detail. The user will usually grab any rough piece of paper like sticky note pads, newspapers and grocery bills which are within easy reach of the user to capture the information. The user will decide if the information is worth more permanent storage later. These pieces of information can be classified as either short-term or long-term information. Short-term information is information which is of temporary use like the telephone and address of a store. Long-term information, on the other hand, is information which may be of longer interest to the user, like contact information of friends and family members. The user will usually transfer longer-term information into a more permanent storage such as in the pen-and-ink diary.
Another disadvantage of the pen-and-ink diary is the tedious process of searching for information that was previously recorded. For example a user records an appointment which is five months away in the diary. After a time lapse, the user equipped with only information regarding what the meeting is about will find great difficulty in recalling which day and therefore on which page the appointment information is recorded. A further disadvantage which is also linked to searching is the unavoidable haphazard way a user enters information. For example, information in the address and telephone directory is not ordered in any manner, and a user wishing to search for a particular item will have to scan through the entire directory to locate the required piece of information.
Electronic organizers allow much faster searches. Some even allow invoked searches on one application to search for information residing with other applications. An example of such a search feature is found in the find tool of applications for Windows CE (Windows CE, a trademarked operating system from Microsoft, Redmond, Wash., USA). One of the reasons that contribute to a faster search is the more orderly manner of information storage as compared to that possible in a pen-and-ink diary. The separate groups of information are not only maintained in different databases, very much like the different sections in a pen-and-ink diary but they are also sorted before being stored. The processing power of the microprocessor in such electronic organizers further enhances the speed with which searches of information can be made. To search for a particular piece of information, a user simply invokes a find feature which scans a user-specified number of databases for the particular piece of information. Even though the electronic organizers are more useful and convenient as compared to the pen-and-ink diaries, they still suffer the same disadvantage of slow data entry. This problem is further exacerbated by the fact that the keyboard of the electronic organizers is usually small and therefore limits the speed with which a user can use the keyboard to enter information. The different types of information are also stored in separate databases necessitating the user to launch different applications to record the different types of information. In such cases, there is a one-to-one relationship between an application and a database. The speed of information entry is governed by how fast a user can decide which application to launch to capture a particular set of information. Also, once the appropriate application is launched, it is not possible for a user to enter information using a free form manner since the graphical user interface (GUI) of the application will dictate the manner a user enters data, thus further slowing down the process of information entry.
The process involved in information entry inconveniences a user who now has to assimilate the information to be organized, decide the application under which the information should rightfully reside with, launch the selected application and enter the information as dictated by fields in the GUI input screen. Users of these electronic devices are mostly mobile people who would rather do away with this extraneous step of having to decide which of the many applications to launch to capture a set of information. Also, a user would prefer to enter information in an order as and when the information is supplied and not have to look for a field to enter a certain piece of information. This restrictive manner in which an application requires a user to enter information is unintuitive and impedes the process.
The naming of the applications on organizers of different make further inconveniences a user. For example, a contact application in one organizer is known as a phone application in another organizer. Similarly, a calendar application in one organizer is known as an appointment application on another. The task of having to decide which application to launch for a user who owns two such organizers is inconvenient and annoying. The user would rather remember just one application and be able to enter information using the one application as would be the case with a rough piece of paper where the user could enter the information in a sequence as the information is supplied.
The foregoing therefore creates the need for an application software or a software function within an application software which a user can independently launch or invoke to quickly capture any input information entered in a free form manner. Once the information is entered, the user can either have the information organized immediately or wait till a more convenient time later to organize the information. To organize the information, the user simply activates the automatic organize function which takes the input information, classifies the information into groups and stores the individual groups of information into the appropriate databases.
An organize application software on an electronic organizer is provided with a preferred method for hassle free capturing and organizing of information. To capture and organize a set of input information, a user simply launches the organize application which, according to one aspect of the invention, is separate from and independent of existing applications on the electronic organizer. A graphical user interface (GUI) is presented to the user to allow the user to enter the input information in a free form manner. Once the user is done with the information entry, the user can either organize the information immediately or at a later time convenient to the user. To organize the information, the user invokes an organize function to process the input information. This invocation causes the application to parse the input information and decide what the input information is and where and how the information is to be stored.
With this invention, a user no longer needs to worry about which of the many applications to invoke to organize a set of input information. The user needs to launch only the organize application. The user is also allowed to enter information in a free form manner. In other words, data entry is not dictated by fields in a database; once the free form information is entered, the application decides how the information is to be organized. The invention also corresponds closely to a capture-first-organize-later approach which is more intuitive to the user. All these simplified steps allow a user to more quickly capture short and long-term information and storing only longer-term information which the user deems necessary.